


Death be not Proud

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Death, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Honor, Minor Character Death, Quarantine, Sweating Sickness, mentoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 20:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11997663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: The Sweating Sickness has returned to Tortall, and Imrah, to Roald's disbelief and disapproval, has placed an entire village under quarantine to halt the spread of the disease.





	Death be not Proud

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware that this story does contain minor character death and treats the Sweating Sickness as very similar to the bubonic and pneumonic plagues that tore through Europe in cycles for centuries. The plight of Elyam is particularly based on the village of Eyam in England, which quarantined itself during an outbreak of the plague to prevent it from spreading to nearby villages, and the title, of course, is borrowed from John Donne's sonnet.

The clangor of his sword clashing against Lord Imrah’s in their fierce but mock duel resounded throughout the courtyard so loudly that Roald didn’t hear the raising and the lowering of the iron gates guarding the castle at Port Legann and would have ignored the thundering hooves of the incoming guardsman if the horse hadn’t stopped feet from him and Lord Imrah. 

“Urgent or can it wait, Bram?” Imrah kept one hawk eye on Roald, parrying Roald’s latest attempt to disarm him, and fixed the other on the sweaty man-at-arms who had just pulled his mount to a halt. 

“I wouldn’t have run so fast here if it wasn’t urgent, milord.” Even though it had been his gelding and not him doing the running, Bram seemed to be out of breath and mashing his words together as a result. 

“I’ll listen now, then.” Imrah nodded at Bram, and Roald took this as his cue to lower his sword until Imrah’s conversation with the gaurdsman was complete. 

The breeze blowing off the Emerald Ocean ruffled Roald’s coal-black hair and made the perspiration between his shoulder blades feel pleasantly cool. Through the crenellations on the castle wall, Roald could see the waves, green as the seaweed that washed up on shore at low tide, crashing against the white sand. If he strained his ears, he could just hear the sound of the waves dancing with the beach, but it required no effort to discern the cawing of sea birds as they soared overhead, searching for fish on which to feast. It was a perfect peaceful moment, as serene as it was simplistic, that Roald would only appreciate when Bram spoke again, and the beauty of the day turned into horror. 

“Sweating Sickness in the village of Elyam!” Bram’s frantic voice echoed throughout the courtyard, and a gaggle of gossiping maids who had been drawing washing water from the well glanced backward at Bram, though, judging from their more curious than panicked expressions, they hadn’t heard his actual words, just his uncontrolled volume. 

Roald was too stunned to speak—and for a split second, he wondered if that was one of the symptoms of Sweating Sickness and he was going to become worm food within days or maybe hours—but Imrah wasn’t, demanding, “How?” 

“A contaminated bolt of fabric from Tyra brought in by a smuggler, we believe.” Bram fumbled for a skin of water in his saddle and took a swig of it before continuing. “The smuggler and the merchant who was planning to sell the fabric are all dead, while the merchant’s wife and daughter are both sick enough to snuff it at any second, milord.” 

“You’re certain it’s Sweating Sickness?” Imrah’s forehead furrowed as he frowned. 

“They have the telltale pustules, vomiting, fever, and coughing blood, milord.” Bram spat out the water in his mouth as if he couldn’t stomach drinking while thinking about the ravages the Sweating Sickness could inflict on a body. 

“So far it hasn’t spread beyond Elyam?” Imrah arched an eyebrow at Bram, and Roald didn’t know whether to admire or hate his knightmaster for being so calm when people were dying and Sweating Sickness had returned to the realm. Panicking wouldn’t resolve anything but surely showing some distress or compassion for the plight of the afflicted was allowed before focusing on strategy. Imrah was a brilliant strategist but he did have an innate sympathy for all living creatures (Roald had seen him slipping sugar cubes to horses, table scraps to dogs, and treats to servant children) so Roald couldn’t understand why Roald was ignoring the human dimension in this impending crisis unless he feared that so many would die in this epidemic that disassociation was the only solution. 

“Not that we know of, milord,” confirmed Bram. 

“Then Elyam must be quarantined for a month,” Imrah rapped out, and Roald heard his statement as if it were a magistrate’s gavel pounding after a pronouncement of execution. “The gates to the village must be sealed, and nobody will be allowed in or out under penalty of death. Only that might stop the spread of this contagion.” 

“My lord!” Roald gasped, jaw dropping to his chest. “What about food for the villagers? They’ll starve before the Sweating Sickness even has a chance to take them.” 

“They won’t, Your Highness, and don’t interrupt.” Imrah spared Roald a stern glance that told him to hush before ordering Bram, “Tell the guards that food is to be left on a rock a hundred feet from the village every week. One villager each week will be exempt from the quarantine only to collect the food and return to the village with it.” 

Roald itched to challenge Imrah, but, remembering it was a serious breach of etiquette to contradict a lord in front of his own guardsman, bit his lip, as Bram replied with a short nod, “It will be done as you command, milord.” 

“Thank you, Bram. Pass my orders onto the guards, bring your horse to the stables, and then get some stew and ale from the kitchens to recover from your journey.” Imrah waved a hand in dismissal, and as Bram rode off, Imrah riveted his focus to Roald, observing, “You don’t agree with my decision, do you, Your Highness?” 

“It’s not for me to question your decisions, my lord.” Roald sounded stiffer than he intended—like he had a stick jammed up his backside—but he couldn’t prevent that. He always got stiff when he disapproved of something but was powerless to stop it and realized that attempting to do so would only make him seem like a spoiled royal brat. He stood on his dignity when he could defend nothing else and clung to his politeness when he couldn’t hold onto anything else. His courtesy protected him even more than his sword did. 

“No, of course not. Everyone knows squires never question their knightmaster’s decisions.” Imrah wrapped an arm around Roald’s shoulders, and Roald couldn’t figure out whether he wanted to melt into Imrah’s comforting touch or twist out of it in anger at what Imrah was doing to the people of Elyam, so he compromised—as he always did—by turning his back into a rigid plank but otherwise not reacting to Imrah’s embrace. “You think I’m a cruel man.” 

“No, sir.” Roald shook his head, convinced that the whole situation would be less horrible and baffling if he did believe that Imrah was a callous tyrant oblivious or delighting in the agony of his subjects. “I know you to be a kind and honorable man. That’s why I don’t understand what you’re doing. If you quarantine Elyam for a month, everyone there will die.” 

“Not everyone.” Imrah gave a ragged sigh and tightened his grip around Roald’s shoulders. “Most likely about six out of every ten people will die. Elyam has a population of about a hundred and fifty, so that should leave around sixty survivors.” 

“Oh, that’s just fine, then.” Roald couldn’t stifle the sarcasm that rose in his throat like the bile the Sweating Sickness victims would be spewing in Elyam. “As long as a small remnant survives, it’s absolutely acceptable to sentence everybody else who lives there to death for the crime of making their home in the wrong village. How obvious.” 

“Most of Eylam is doomed no matter what we do.” Imrah’s lips thinned. “If we don’t quarantine Elyam, though, the Sweating Sickness will escape to other parts of the realm, killing thousands. Your Highness, you weren’t alive for the last outbreak of Sweating Sickness, were you?” 

“No, my lord,” admitted Roald, staring down at the shoes he was scuffing through the blades of grass growing throughout the courtyard so he would have an excuse not to meet Imrah’s fervent gaze because his shyness was starting to overtake his Conte stubbornness streak, and that was probably a death knell for his argument, not to mention the poor people of Elyam, who deserved a stronger advocate than Roald was capable of being. 

“You weren’t but I was.” Imrah gave Roald’s shoulders a gentle shake, and, reluctantly, Roald looked up to meet Imrah’s eyes, which were dark from buried traumas and damp with unshed tears. “I lost a father and a mother within three days of one another, and that’s how I came to be lord of this fief before my twentieth birthday, but my loss was nothing compared to the suffering of people in Legann and throughout the realm. In Port Legann, six out of ten people died, and in Corus, the death toll was even steeper with one out of every three people succumbing to the Sweating Sickness.” 

“That was a magical version of the disease, though, wasn’t it, sir?” pointed out Roald. “It might be different with an outbreak that’s just natural.” 

“It might.” Imrah massaged his temples. “But I can’t roll the dice on that when thousands of people’s lives are on the line, Your Highness.” 

“No, you just aren’t going to try to save people’s lives.” Roald’s blue eyes blazed bitterness. “At least not the people in Elyam. You’re just going to hole up in your castle like a weasel hiding in a warren while most of Elyam dies from the disease they were locked up with at your command, but you can pretend that you’re being all noble and sacrificing them for the good of the realm, so what does it matter to you?”

“Watch how you address me, Roald,” warned Imrah, and Roald felt his cheeks burn with some dreadful mixture of embarrassment at his insolent behavior and hopeless fury at Imrah’s intractable decision to quarantine Elyam. “What happens to the people of Elyam matters a great deal to me, but sometimes the good of the realm does demand sacrifice.” 

“It’s not your sacrifice this time.” Roald’s chin lifted in an obstinate that felt unnatural even to him. “It’s Elyam’s, and you can only sacrifice yourself, not other people, my lord. Otherwise that’s not a sacrifice; it’s just murder.” 

“It’s the same as a commander sending a soldier into a risky battle with little hope of victory.” Imrah’s jaw clenched. “When you are king, one day you will understand that you can’t save everyone.” 

“I hope I don’t.” Roald shook his head, as much to demonstrate determination as to clear the unwelcome thought from his brain. 

“So do I.” Imrah’s manner softened, and, patting Roald on the back, he added, “Sword lesson is over for today, Roald. You’re free until supper time.” 

“Thank you, my lord.” Roald bowed and left the brightness of the courtyard for the darkness of the castle, which better suited his black mood. 

Needing a quiet refuge where he could think without interruption, Roald climbed the spiral staircase up to the library, where his feet, without any conscious choice on his part, carried him over to a large map of Legann painted into a corner. Spanning before Roald were green waves depicting the ocean, a gray tower representing the castle in which he was standing, and brown cottages dotted the landscape with their names in script so curlicued as to be borderline illegible. Squinting at the names of the villages because it offered him something instead of Sweating Sickness to contemplate, Roald bent toward the map on the wall and found himself face-to-face with a cottage labeled “Elyam” about two miles away from the castle. 

Two miles wasn’t that far a walk, Roald realized. Surely he could sneak out at night and try to heal the villagers in Elyam throughout the month without anyone noticing? After all, what was the point in having the Gift if he didn’t even attempt to help others with it? He did, of course, feel guilty about disobeying Lord Imrah’s quarantine, but as Crown Prince he did have the power to do such a thing and why did power exist if it couldn’t be used under even the most pressing of circumstances? 

Still, Roald found his mouth so dry it hard to swallow his spiced pike, fresh oysters, and creamy cheese smeared on warm bread at supper. When he crept out of the castle (which was still except for the watchmen on the ramparts, who were more alert for any threat outside than any disturbance inside), his heart was pounding so forcefully between his ribs with either guilt or fear of the Sweating Sickness that he worried his ribs might shatter from the pressure. 

Darkness devoured him as he moved away from the castle, darting from the shadow of one tree to the next to conceal himself from the watchmen. Once he was far enough away from the castle that he felt confident he would not attract any notice, he broke into a run, his heels kicking up dust on the deserted country road. The rational, cowardly of him screamed that he was crazy to be racing toward the Sweating Sickness when he should be fleeing from it, but his heart and his conscience shouted even more ardently that he couldn’t abandon the people he was supposed to serve. 

His feet and his loyalty brought him to the gates of Elyam, which were barred and manned by a quartet of burly guards, who did not look particularly happy to be disturbed at their post at such a late hour. As Roald internally cursed himself for forgetting to plan a way around the guards Imrah had dispatched to enforce the quarantine, one of the soldiers said curtly, “Lord Imrah has placed a quarantine on this village, Your Highness. Best you be heading back to the castle now for your own good.” 

“For my own good, but not for the good of Elyam.” Roald folded his arms across his chest, mimicking his father’s posture when he was drawing a line in the sand. “I am the Crown Prince, and therefore not subject to any quarantines declared by Lord Imrah. Let me pass.” 

The guards hesitated, and then flung open the gates. Roald had expected a stench of illness—of delirium and nausea—to hit his nostrils as soon as he entered the doomed village, but he smelled only the mingling of human and animal refuse so common in villages throughout the realm. There were a knot of villagers wailing beside a wail, no doubt mourning the fact that they were dead people walking, and Roald, a frog hopping in his throat, approached them. 

“Your Highness.” A woman in a patched dress recognized Roald probably by his finery, which he now realized was as out-of-place in this village as a lion would be at a banquet. “Forgive me for saying so, but you shouldn’t be here.” 

“This is exactly where I should be.” Roald locked eyes with each member of the crowd around the well, receiving stares that were admiring, awed, or appalled, and then added, “Please take me to the afflicted merchant’s family.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” The woman curtsied, and obviously unfamiliar with the motion, stumbled over her own bare feet. “This way.” 

She led him across the square to a house where Roald was overwhelmed with the stench of sweat mixing with excrement and vomit in a way that made him feel sick himself. As the woman dashed away from the house, Roald saw a little girl who could be no older than five clinging to her mother for comfort, as they both moaned on a mattress with blankets already covered by the rusty stains of coughed-up blood. Boils swelled around their necks like baubles, and bruises decorated their arms like bracelets. The Black God was decorating them for death, which Roald could smell hovering around them. 

The afflicted mother and daughter were too delirious to observe Roald’s presence, so Roald decided to waste no time explaining that he was here to help. Instead, he fanned the fire, trying to sweat out the sickness. Then, with the fire roaring in the hearth behind him, he mashed yarrow, sage, and thyme from the merchant’s cabinets in the pestle and mortar to create a remedy he could spoon into the mouths of those he was trying to heal. 

Before he had finished, a violent coughing fit tore through the girl, spattering blood on the walls and her blankets, before she collapsed on the bed, too still to even be breathing, and her face finally tranquil instead of tormented. A manic belief that he could march over and steal the girl back from the Black God’s possession caused him to lurch forward to grab her as if that alone would be enough to yank her back from death, but, before he could take more than a step forward, both his upper arms were seized in a vise-grip. 

“Release me,” Roald hissed without even bothering to turn around to see who had grabbed him. 

“No.” The harsh tone belonged to Lord Imrah as did the scratchy wool cloak Roald’s face was pressed against as he was spun away from the mattress where death lay. “You are coming back with me to the castle now, and you will never set foot in this village until I lift the quarantine.” 

“How did you know I was here?” Roald twisted frantically about, feeling like a hapless mosquito caught in a spider’s web, trying to free himself from Imrah’s firm hold. 

“One of the guards I posted outside the village rode back to the castle to alert me that you had come in here.” Imrah didn’t even sound out of breath despite the struggles that were consuming all the air in Roald’s strangled lungs, and that made Roald mad—mad at Imrah, mad at the guard who had betrayed him, mad at the Sweating Sickness, and mad at his own failure to save the girl, a girl he had never met before tonight but whose death seemed all the more devastating because of that. 

“She died, my lord.” Roald fixated on this idea that he still didn’t want to accept but didn’t have the energy to rage against as Imrah steered him out of the dead merchant’s house. “That girl died, and I never even knew her name.” 

“She didn’t cough on you, or touch you, or so much as breathe on you, did she, Roald?” Imrah was, as far as Roald was concerned, asking the wrong questions, but he nodded dutifully—because really duty was all he ever had, all he ever lived for—to each one. 

“Thank the Great Mother Goddess for her mercy, you will have escaped contagion, despite your folly.” Imrah gestured shortly for Roald to mount his chestnut stallion, and when Roald, numb with the realization that there truly was nothing he could do for the inhabitants of Elyam, climbed into the saddle, Imrah slipped him behind him and then spurred his horse. 

As they sped, increasing their pace with each furlong, past the gate and the guards slammed it shut behind them, trapping the people of Elyam with the Sweating Sickness once again, Roald murmured, not knowing whether he was addressing the villagers, or the dead girl and her fading mother, or even Lord Imrah, “I’m sorry.” 

He had assumed that Imrah wouldn’t be able to hear him over the clopping of the horse’s shoes as they charged down the otherwise deserted road at a pace Imrah must have hoped would be sufficient to outrun death, but Imrah demanded sharply, his tone cutting into Roald like a dagger to the heart, “What are you sorry for, Your Highness? Disobeying my orders, which were given not only for your own good, but the good of the entire realm? Sneaking out of my castle in the middle of the night like a thief? Almost getting yourself killed by your own impulsiveness?” 

Roald was rarely the member of his family accused of impulsivity—typically that honor belonged to one of his parents or his siblings, since, compared to the rest of the Conte line, Roald considered himself quite passive. He had a nasty suspicion that Imrah’s questions were the kind where there wasn’t a right or a winning answer, but it would also have been immensely disrespectful to not reply to a direct inquiry from his incensed knightmaster, and he didn’t want to add insolence to the litany of offenses that Imrah could (not unjustifiably) rant at him about tonight, so he responded softly, “I’m sorry I disobeyed you and that I ran away, my lord, but I’m not sorry for risking my life for my people. I’m just sorry that I can’t save them.”

This apology was nowhere near enough to appease Imrah, who grunted as they raced into the torch-lit castle courtyard, “I swear by Mithros, if you weren’t the Crown Prince, I’d slap some sense into you.” 

“If all that’s stopping you from hitting me is my rank, please slap away, my lord.” Roald stiffened into an armor of cold courtesy so if his knightmaster did strike him it probably wouldn’t hurt as he and Imrah dismounted, and a yawning stable boy stepped forward to take the reigns. “I don’t stand on royal privilege.” 

That was a truth that not even his enemies—though he didn’t have those; not even Joren and his gang of bullies identified him as such, because Roald never stooped to openly displaying his utter contempt for them—could deny. Roald II of Conte cared so much about duty that it ruled his entire life but he didn’t take advantage of royal privilege. He existed to serve the realm, not to have the realm cater to his needs, desires, or whims. 

“You’ve called my bluff, I admit it.” To Roald’s shock, Imrah guided him into a bear hug against his chest, where Roald could hear, in the thudding of Imrah’s heart, how terrified Imrah had been of losing him to the Sweating Sickness. Roald, who normally was uncomfortable with physical contact of this ilk, was overcome with such an abrupt affection for his knightmaster that he actually flung his arms around Imrah’s powerful frame. “Even if you were a peasant’s son, I wouldn’t strike you, but, by all the gods, promise me you won’t ever march into a quarantined village under the delusion that you alone can heal the inhabitants again.” 

“I promise, sir,” Roald whispered, because he knew Imrah was leaning close enough to hear every word. “I’m sorry I scared you half to death.” 

“I’m sorry you had to see the ravages of the Sweating Sickness firsthand.” Imrah squeezed the nape of Roald’s neck. 

“You weren’t wrong to quarantine Elyam.” Even in this tender moment, Roald felt as if this confession had been pulled from him like rotten teeth. 

“And you weren’t wrong to try to save the village.” Imrah gave Roald’s forehead a kiss light enough that Roald could almost imagine it had never happened. “We’ll forgive each other. Now get some sleep." 

Four weeks later, when the guards lifted the quarantine from Elyam, they rode back to the castle with news that the plague had died in Elyam and left a little more than sixty survivors.


End file.
